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Timed-pNets: a communication behavioural semantic model for distributed systems

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Abstract

This paper presents an approach to build a communication behavioural semantic model for heterogeneous distributed systems that include synchronous and asynchronous communications. Since each node of such system has its own physical clock, it brings the challenges of correctly specifying the system time constraints. Based on the logical clocks proposed by Lamport, and CCSL proposed by Aoste team in INRIA, as well as pNets from Oasis team in INRIA, we develop timed-pNets to model communication behaviours for distributed systems. Timed-pNets are tree style hierarchical structures. Each node is associated with a timed specification which consists of a set of logical clocks and some relations on clocks. The leaves are represented by timed-pLTSs. Non-leaf nodes (called timed-pNets nodes) are synchronisation devices that synchronize the behaviours of subnets (these subnets can be leaves or non-leaf nodes). Both timed-pLTSs and timed-pNets nodes can be translated to timed specifications. All these notions and methods are illustrated on a simple use-case of car insertion from the area of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In the end the TimeSquare tool is used to simulate and check the validity of our model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MoE Engineering Research Center for Software/Hardware Co-design Technology and Application, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Trustworthy Computing, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Yanwen Chen & Yixiang Chen

  2. INRIA Sophia Antipolis Méditérannée, Sophia Antipolis, 06902, France

    Yanwen Chen & Eric Madelaine

  3. CNRS, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, Sophia Antipolis, 06900, France

    Yanwen Chen & Eric Madelaine

Authors
  1. Yanwen Chen
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  2. Yixiang Chen
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  3. Eric Madelaine
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Correspondence to Yixiang Chen.

Additional information

Yanwen Chen is a PhD student registed both in the East China Normal University and in the University de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France. She got her MS in both universities in the domain of computer science. Her research interests include distributed systems, cloud computing and formal methods. Now her research topic concerns the formal modeling and real-time scheduling of cyber physical systems.

Yixiang Chen is a full professor for computer science and technology at Software Engineering Institute (SEI), East China Normal University (ECNU), where he is coordinating trustworthy software, Internet of things and cloud computing related research activities. Professor Chen is the director of the Engineering Research Center for Software/Hardware Co-design Technology and Application, MoE of China. He is a Member of the Cloud Computing Experts Association of Chinese Institute of Electronics and Vice Chair of Shanghai Pudong IoT Alliance.

Eric Madelaine is a senior researcher at INRIA in Sophia-Antipolis, France. He has a diploma from Ecole Polytechnique, a PhD thesis from University of Paris 7, and an Habilitation from University of Nice, France. His research interests range from semantics of programming languages, distributed and cloud computing, component-based software, formal methods, methods and tools for specification and verification of complex programs. He has served in many international conferences committees, including Euromicro, FESCA, SEAA, FMCO, and FACS.

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Chen, Y., Chen, Y. & Madelaine, E. Timed-pNets: a communication behavioural semantic model for distributed systems. Front. Comput. Sci. 9, 87–110 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-014-4096-4

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